Certain presently existing planting equipment, particularly models heretofore commercialized by the Allis-Chalmers Company have utilized a type of covering apparatus that has not been totally satisfactory, particularly from the standpoint of not being able to provide uniform depth control of the deposited seeds. In the conventional construction, the covering apparatus is largely erratic in its operation and may cover some of the seeds with a substantial quantity of soil while leaving others less deeply covered, resulting in uneven planting depth and irregular emergence characteristics.
Accordingly a principle object of the present invention is to provide a way of modifying such a planter so as to provide the planter with improved covering apparatus that yields uniform depth control and thus better over all results for the framer. A further object in this respect is to provide such a modification without interfacing with the seed depositing and soil opening apparatus of the planter, which have been found to be quite acceptable for my purposes.
In carrying out the foregoing and other objects of my invention, I have chosen to completely remove the previously available covering apparatus from the equipment and to replace the same with new apparatus that operates in the desired manner. Such previous apparatus included a pair of fore-and-aft extending, long arms attached to the frame of the planter on opposite sides of the opener and provided at their rear ends with a pair of covering devices either in the form of fixed, angled soil deflecting devices or a pair of angled rotary discs that likewise deflected the soil inwardly into covering relationship with the soil trench. Each of the long arms was free to swing up and down independently of the other and was urged into a soil-engaging position solely by gravity.
In the new construction, I have installed an extension section in the fore-and-aft frame of the planter to provide a greater over all length and have therefore permitted the trailing press wheel to be reinstalled further to the rear of the planter than was heretofore the case. This provides a greater space between the opener and the trailing press wheel, permitting the insertion of a covering assembly into the enlarged space which is commercially available on the open market. I provide different styles of front adapter brackets which may be bolted directly to the rear of the existing openers so as to enable the covering assembly to be connected to such brackets. Likewise, I provide a variety of different types of rear, overhead adapter brackets which attach to the overhead frame of the particular planter being modified so as to provide a second place of attachment for certain components of the covering assembly. Such overhead bracket provides a depth limiting control for the assembly and also an overhead stop against which a compression spring can be applied to urge the soil converging discs of the assembly downwardly into soil-contacting engagement.